Calcine is all about playfulness and fun. Originally designed (and perfect for) posters and flyers, the typeface—the
n… read more

Calcine is all about playfulness and fun. Originally designed (and perfect for) posters and flyers, the typeface—the name comes from a bastardization of the process of roasting coffee beans—thrives off of its proportions and superstructure. Reminiscent of abstracted brush and marker letterings, Calcine has visible roots in written forms, settling in somewhere between scrips and san serifs.

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About the Designer Mark Froemberg

Mark Frömberg is a Berlin-born and -bred designer who stays alive and productive with the assistance of millions of
cof… read more

Mark Frömberg is a Berlin-born and -bred designer who stays alive and productive with the assistance of millions of coffee beans and plenty of jolts of fizzy drinks. If his heart rate wasn't already accelerated by those things, letters, letterings, typography, and illustration would surely do the rest. Mark's style is much like the typefaces he creates: joyful, playful, and full of human warmth.

Could you give us a brief introduction to yourself and to your work?My name is Mark Frömberg. I was born in Berlin, Germany, back in 1984 and still live here. Currently, I am finishing my studies in communications design at the University of Applied Sciences and work on several design projects as a freelancer. My heart beats for letters, letterings, typography, and illustration.

Please provide us with a short description of the font.Calcine is a dear pal with unique proportions and a humanly warmth. It has visible roots in written forms and could be settled somewhere between scripts and sans serifs.

What was the main idea behind designing the font?The basic idea of Calcine was making a tailored typeface for a design project I already escorted for some time. I made posters and flyers for a party serial featuring renowned acts in the electronic music scene. I was bothered by the mixed writing of upper- and lower-case letters all across, which seems to be a common manner in the scene. Also, I had to blow up the size of the DJs' names and needed a font with minimum space requirements. Last but not least, it was my goal to consort with the illustrative eye-catchers and stress the handmade details.

How would you characterize your style?I live in various worlds. The fictional, cheeky, illustrative urge from my heart melts with my rational, typographic sense of details. For me, lettering always feels like a bridge between these worlds and is a significant part of my work. I try to avoid making too eccentric designs, since design is for the people and totally has to serve the purpose. On the other hand, I tempt to render unique things nobody has ever seen that way. How I balance these portions depends on every single project.

How did you come up with the name of the font?This was fairly simple: The letterforms kind of reminded me of roasted coffee beans or nuts. And, because I tend to exaggerate sometimes for fun, I caricatured "roast" into "calcination" and cut up the end to make it sound more like a name.

Can you describe some particular mannerism that distinguishes Calcine?All in all, it is definitely the proportions and superstructure. The x-height is so large that one should rather say the uppercase letters are small. The kind of shaping I did to the letterforms goes back to abstracted letterings with brush and marker. And it features some interesting stylistic alternates. Such as a pointy and a round form of the "w," a set of diverse ampersands, and especially two forms of the german "eszett," plus my first interpretation of the uppercase "eszett"—which is an ambivalent letter, but in my eyes inevitable!

Can you tell us something about the process of developing Calcine? Did you have some particular inspirations?After the first ideas came up and were fixed on paper, I rendered some letters digitally and tried to see whether my plan would work. Then I started to make more letters and numbers so that i could apply them to the first designs. At that stage, it was a really undefined and loose design, but I could see where the whole thing should go. I had no particular inspirations; however, I tried to take the best of the proportions of Quadraat Head, Fago, and Corpid and liverwurst them into my design. The rest came from inside of me—since i look at typefaces all the time, study their complexion and saving all the influences in a little casket in my belly. Anyway, I made more and more glyphs and began to design the companion weights and cuts. Millions of brewed coffee beans, tons of printed test sheets, and a lifetime subscription of Club Mate later I ended up with six cuts supporting 11 languages.

What is the ideal usage of your font?I wouldn’t certainly make this fix—play with it and have fun! Calcine works very well in display sizes, but also in text settings. It's well-suited for posters and flyers—since I designed it for them—but you could definitely apply it to a (children’s) book with a lot of illustrations as well. And I see a wide field of usage in package design (e.g. foods), and not to forget logos. When you need a bit of human feeling to a design ,you should try Calcine. It is ideal where it feels good.

Finally, tell us about your future plans and projects.There is really much to do, and I am looking forward to many joyful design projects. To make it short, I'll limit my answer to type design: I am currently working on another typeface which will be released by Gestalten Fonts in 2012. It is a script-like face with a very unique character and hundreds of ligatures and stylistic alternates, using all the sexy benefits of open-type programming. If you think you have seen enough script-faces and there won’t be anything new—wait for my next baby!